


Dear Peggy

by flootzavut



Series: Next Time [11]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s11e07 Settling Debts, Epistolary, F/M, Friendship, Humour, Letters, M/M, OT3 implied, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Prose and letters, Sequel, nexttimeverse, queer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-23 21:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15615720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flootzavut/pseuds/flootzavut
Summary: "Three days after Peggy's letter arrives, Hawkeye's still struggling to even process it..."Hawkeye tries to reply to Peggy's letter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onekisstotakewithme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/gifts).



* * *

_**Dear Peggy** _

* * *

 

Three days after Peggy's letter arrives, Hawkeye's still struggling to even process it, never mind respond. He can't quite believe it, and every time he rereads it, he's surprised all over again.

Of course he always assumed Peg was special. Of course the woman who could inspire such loyalty and adoration in BJ Hunnicutt would be someone remarkable and loving and wonderful. Hawkeye never doubted that.

He still doesn't understand how she can reach into his soul and see his greatest insecurities and do her best to assuage them. Do her best to love and comfort a man she's never even met, a man who's done nothing for her except make her husband traipse across an entire continent by being such a broken wreck.

He doesn't understand. He really doesn't. Maybe Beej really wasn't exaggerating his wife's willingness to put up with a shell-shocked ruin of a man.

Hawkeye can't recall the last time he was the recipient of such utterly undeserved sweetness and kindness. He's determined to write back - he can't, he  _won't_  let BJ's Peggy down - but quite how he'll do her letter justice, he can't imagine. If he filled half a dozen pages with 'Thank you', he might capture a fraction of his gratitude - it might be a start.

He pores over the letter like he might miss something if he doesn't study it hard enough, not just because of the warmth and love she poured into it herself, but because of what she says about her husband.

> He misses you dreadfully.

Hawk didn't know how much he needed to hear that from a third party until he read it. Peg surely knows her husband better than anyone, so if she says it, Hawk can very nearly believe it's true.

> BJ will be thrilled to see you.

She has no reason to lie to him, not about this. If Peg wants him to visit enough that she'd write to a man she's never met and plead with him to do so, then it's almost credible even to Hawk that they really do want him to come. Not even his most paranoid imaginings can dream up an ulterior motive that makes any sense, not yet. He daren't make assumptions - on his very worst days he can spin shreds of nothing into disaster - but it's good to find some comfort. He's reread the letter almost as often as he's read the most recent one from BJ.

Each time he reads it, he cries, and loves Peggy a little bit more.

He's loved her almost as long as he's loved BJ, seeing her through BJ's eyes, getting to know her secondhand. He'd defy anyone to love BJ and not love Peggy too. But now - now he has a little piece of her that's just for him, that isn't secondhand or meant for someone else; it makes him ache and touches him deeply. It seems that of all the worries he's had over meeting BJ's family, the one most likely to come true is that Peg will make herself at home in his heart just as easily as BJ did.

(He can't figure out if loving them both is better or worse than just loving BJ, but he can't seem to stop himself, no matter how unwise it may be.)

The first and most important thing he wants to do when he gets to California is to grab Beej, pull him close and hug him as hard as possible, but meeting Peggy is now something that intrigues him almost as much as it still terrifies him, and is moving rapidly up the list of reasons he really needs to go.

He can't help wondering what BJ has and hasn't told her.

Hawk doesn't want to have to explain why he's scared around kids, why he's already afraid to hold Erin before they've ever even been in the same room, but he's also afraid of what Peg thinks of him, of... everything.

It does feel as if she knows him already, and it's obvious BJ was generous in the retelling of their time together. Hawk wants her to like him, he cares far, far too much already. He's terrified that his brokenness will scare or hurt her. He's terrified she'll reject him when she realises how deep it runs.

> You kept him sane.

Of all the things she wrote, this might be the one that gets to Hawkeye the most. He always felt so inadequate, as if he should be able to protect BJ better if he could only figure out how, as if every time Beej got a little more jaded, a little more scarred, it was his fault. He took on responsibility for BJ's well-being before he even realised he had, right there at Kimpo when he saw a fresh-faced apple-pie grin and thought,  _but he's so young_. His ability to preserve a little of BJ's sweetness and innocence alongside his sanity never seemed to be enough, never seemed to outpace Korea's grinding determination to flatten each and every one of them.

 _It was Beej who kept_ me _sane_. He'll tell her that, along with a hundred other things. And he hopes like hell she'll like him in real life as much as she did through BJ's words. Hopes she won't regret calling him darling and treating him like an old friend.

> ... what I most want is for you to feel you can visit us whenever you like. You will always be welcome in our home, Hawkeye Pierce.

Oh God, how he hopes she's right.


	2. Chapter 2

> Dear Peggy,
> 
> I don't know how to start this letter. I don't know how to say thank you.
> 
> I'm wondering how Beej found an actual angel, let alone convinced you to marry him. You're far too lovely and forgiving for a mere mortal. I did think about writing 'thank you' continuously for a dozen pages, but I'm going to try my hand at a real letter - maybe the envelope full of thank yous will happen later.
> 
> Speaking of BJ - please let him know this is not your mortgage. Tell him it's a love letter. It won't be far wrong.
> 
> Peg... I really don't know what to say. I was part of what kept your husband away for so long, and I was glad he was there with me. I was so glad to have him. ~~I wanted to keep him~~ And then I made him worry, made him trek all the way across the country to see me, leaving you and Erin on your own yet again. You should hate me, or at least be annoyed with me. I don't know how to deal with your kindness and your sweetness, don't know what to do with your forgiveness.
> 
> You are a special, special lady, Peggy Hunnicutt. I am in awe. Truly, I am. You have a heart as big as BJ's, and he has more heart than anyone else I know. I'm crying as I write this; I never dared imagine you would care so much about me, Peg.
> 
> I am terrified of meeting you. Maybe even more so now - how can I possibly dare to presume upon an angel? But at the same time, I want even more to meet you, to meet the woman who cares so much for a broken up mess like me. I'm more scared than I can put into words, and I hope you'll forgive me for all the doubts and fears I can't put aside. I am bewildered, I don't know how to deal with everything I'm feeling. But I'm grateful, so grateful, that I have BJ in my life, and even more grateful to find that someone who has every reason to resent me for the difficulties and bad memories I represent in his life is able to love and forgive me
> 
> If I had the words to say how much it meant, I would be a worthy successor to Shakespeare. As it is, all I can do is my best - all I can say is thank you.
> 
> I'm going to seal this and mail it right away. I don't know how to do justice to your letter, and if I reread this, I'm afraid I'll see how poor and paltry it is. There's no way I can write the letter you deserve to receive, but I would rather do my best than not reply at all. I doubt you were ready for undiluted Hawkeye Pierce, but if I think about this too hard, I'll never be brave enough to send it.
> 
> God and I don't see eye to eye, but I thank whoever is out there and listening that you exist on this earth and I am somehow one of the people you care for. As a card-carrying sceptic, even I can see the miracle in that.
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Hawkeye

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

It didn't occur to BJ Hawk would write his wife, and he doesn't see the envelope. He has no idea what's happening when Peggy giggles over her breakfast.

"What's so funny?"

"Hawkeye says to tell you this isn't your mortgage. Does that mean anything to you?"

It takes a moment for BJ to get over his surprise that Peg has a letter from Hawk and put the pieces together, but then he bursts out laughing, and when Peg looks at him as if she thinks he's lost his mind, he laughs even harder and wraps his arms around his middle, because it feels like he's going to burst.

Peg rolls her eyes and waits patiently, chin propped on one hand, for him to get a grip.

When he's gotten his breath back a little, and taken a good mouthful of coffee, he thinks he might just be able to speak again. "It's-" He's not sure how to explain why it's so funny, except that it's Hawk, it's a good memory with Hawkeye, and those always brighten his day. "Mrs Potter sent Hawkeye a letter, with the Potters' mortgage in it - she paid it off early. And Colonel Potter, well..." BJ chuckles again. "The poor man. He was paranoid why she'd be writing Hawk, not him. He thought his wife had bought a houseboat."

Peggy gives him a quizzical look.

He shrugs helplessly. "Maybe you had to be there."

She laughs. "I think you might be right, darling."

Impulsively, BJ picks her hand up from the table to kiss it. "How on earth do you put up with me, Peggy Jane?"

Peg gives him her sweetest (and, in his experience, most mischievous) smile. "Years of practice."

They both laugh at that, then Peg goes back to her letter as BJ sips his coffee, absently stroking her knuckles as he thinks through the day ahead.

He's mentally dealt with most of the busywork around his real job when he hears a noise from Peggy and glances over. Then stops breathing for a second; laughter is a regular response to Hawkeye Pierce, but BJ didn't expect to discover his wife with a hand over her mouth and tears welling in her eyes.

"Peg?"

She looks up and gives him a watery smile. "You didn't tell me Hawkeye's a poet."

BJ squeezes her hand, then reaches out to brush away a tear from her cheek. "He's not."

"Oh, he is." Her smile brightens even as more tears escape. "BJ, he loves you so much. I can see it in every word. And he's so hurt. So broken. He's-" she shakes her head and audibly gulps. "-he's shattered."

Her distress is so evident, BJ can't bear it. He stands up, scoops her into his arms, and rubs her back as she sobs into his shoulder.

"It's okay, Peg," he whispers. "We'll look after him. We'll figure this out."

Peggy clings on to him hard, even after her body stops shaking. She turns her head so her cheek is against his chest and tucks herself in under his chin.

"I love you, BJ," she says.

"I love you too, darlin'."

"Tell me it will be all right."

He swallows back the lump in his throat. "It'll be all right."

"Thank you."

BJ holds her even closer and kisses her hair. Peg is usually the strong one, the level-headed one; it breaks him a little to see her like this. He wonders what Hawk wrote to touch her so deeply.

"You know," he says softly, "if Hawk doesn't get his butt in gear and set a date soon, I'm going to fly back to Maine and kidnap him."

Peggy giggles wetly. "That sounds like an excellent plan to me."

"You gonna be okay today?"

She nods, rubbing her face against his shirt how she does - a mixture of affection and trying to wipe the tears off of her face.

"Don't worry about me," she says, loosening her grip and smiling up at him, and there's his Peggy, soft and loving and tender, strong as an Amazon in all her vulnerability. She pats his chest. "Go to work and be wonderful."

"I'll try."

Peg goes up on tiptoe to kiss him. "You'll succeed."

It's a ritual, but one that never fails to make BJ feel he can handle whatever the day throws at him. "I love you."

"I love you too."

BJ strokes her cheek, gives her one last squeeze and one last kiss, then gulps down the last of his coffee, grabs his bag, and heads out. Just before he closes the front door behind him, he yells out, "Honey?"

Peg peers into the hall from the kitchen, hands covered in suds from the washing up. "Yes?"

"I was going to tell you to be wonderful, but it's too late, you already are."

She laughs and flicks water at him, and BJ knows no better way to start his day than making someone he loves smile that wide. One of these days, God willing, he'll get to do that for Hawkeye, too, but for now, he is so thankful to have Peggy in his life.

_~ fin ~_


End file.
